Anchored by Hope
by SamCyberCat
Summary: For whatever reason Klavier had stayed in this country instead of going back to Germany. A conversation with Phoenix had prompted Apollo to find out more about that. Klavier/Apollo.


Notes – Done for 15_pairings. a few months post-AJ.

* * *

"There's one thing that bothers me about Prosecutor Gavin," Phoenix said, looking from his place on the sofa towards Apollo's general direction. He tended to strike up the most ominous conversations at any time, so deciding to share his thoughts on Klavier didn't surprise Apollo anymore than if Phoenix asked him to go defend a mafia would do.

"Only one?" Apollo answered light-heartedly. He could think of several things that bothered him about Klavier from the top of his head.

Shifting to a more comfortable position, Phoenix confirmed, "Yeah, why hasn't he left the country yet?"

"What?" This one did genuinely surprise Apollo. "Has he ever said to you that he's going to leave?"

"No, but it's almost a prosecutor destiny," Phoenix said, now staring off into space. Apollo knew that this meant Phoenix was going to relay some information that he may or may not be interested in, so had the sense to stay quite and let him talk. "When I was an attorney I went through quite a few prosecutors. They all seemed to have a habit of disappearing off to Germany or somewhere like that. Say, Gavin is German, isn't he?"

Apollo had frozen at the thought of Klavier disappearing and didn't even register the question.

Recovering, he stammered, "L-look, he's just not that sort of guy. I'm sure he goes back and forth from Germany all the time, but it's not like he would stay there without telling me."

"Edgeworth did to me," Phoenix replied, bitterly.

That was a train-wreck of a conversation Apollo knew to steer clear of when he could.

"All right, but I doubt Prosecutor Gavin would leave so suddenly. He bothers me whenever anything else takes his fancy, so I think he'd tell me something that important," Apollo insisted.

But regardless, the conversation with Phoenix stuck in his mind. It wasn't as if, should Klavier leave, that the man had any obligation to tell Apollo about it. They knew each other from work and Klavier had been quite friendly with Apollo, but beyond that they weren't really all that familiar with each other.

And why shouldn't he go back to Germany if he wanted to?

Presumably he had family there beyond Kristoph, probably friends too, so he would want to visit them at some point…

For whatever reason this bothered Apollo, right the way up to going into the court house. There were no trials today, but he had arranged to meet up with Klavier to work out some loose ends in regards to a previous case. Phoenix had muttered darkly about this, saying that defence attorneys and prosecutors discussing cases together was an alien concept and killed the rivalry. Part of Apollo wondered if he was joking.

When they met up Klavier was his usual, cheerful, chatty self, talking about the case contently with Apollo while occasionally waving at someone who past by.

At some point, without even knowing why, Apollo's private thoughts bubbled to the surface and he asked, "Why do you stay here instead of going to Germany?"

The question made Klavier stop half way through writing down some notes.

"You would… rather I went back?" he said, not managing to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"No, not at all," Apollo replied quickly, "I was just wondering why you choose to stay here so much if you could work there just as easily."

"It's true that I could prosecute in either country," Klavier confirmed, flicking his hair back, "Before the case where you got mein bruder arrested I spent a lot of time prosecuting in Germany. But you… you interested me after that, so I stayed to compete with you. And also because my band was here, you heard how Daryan didn't like flying."

"But Detective Crescend was arrested a few months back," Apollo reminded him. It was a subject he hadn't really brought up with Klavier before, because he wasn't completely sure how he felt about it.

Klavier nodded, looking sad for a moment, then he smiled again and said, "But you are still here, ja?"

Apollo looked awkward about that.

"You mean you'd stay here solely because you enjoy prosecuting against me?" he asked.

"There is another reason as well," Klavier assured.

"And what would that be?"

Looking over at him, Klavier smiled and replied, "Perhaps I'm hopeful."

Hopeful?

Apollo's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Hopeful about what…?" he mumbled thoughtfully.

Laughing, Klavier got up and gathered his notes, walking past Apollo and ruffling his hair.

"Hey!" Apollo cried, instinctively reaching up to smooth out his horns again.

Leaning down a little, Klavier said, "Perhaps one day you will realise what I am hopeful about, but for now I think we have talked all we can on this case."

With that he was gone, leaving one very confused and slightly disgruntled Apollo.

When he got back to the office, Apollo said to Phoenix, "I think you were right about prosecutors being an alien race, sometimes I have no idea what Gavin's thinking."

"Why would you say that?" Phoenix replied, noting the mild annoyance in Apollo's expression with amusement.

Folding his arms, Apollo said, "He told me he was staying here because he liked working with me and because he was hopeful. But he didn't say what he was hopeful about."

"You honestly don't know?" Phoenix laughed, having figured it out in the space of a few moments.

"If I knew do you think I'd be so… so irritated by it?" Apollo snapped.

Phoenix just grinned and said, "I suppose not. But like any good lawyer you'll have to figure the answers out for yourself."

"You two are as bad as each other," said Apollo, sighing and taking to the sofa.

There was no reply to that, but Phoenix considered that at least in some regards Klavier might have had similarities to Edgeworth after all. Sadly for Klavier it seemed as if Apollo was as slow as Phoenix himself had been when it came to romance.

Still, there was always hope that this time around things would be different.


End file.
